Charging up an all-electric 320 km/h racing car

Keeping the Lola-Drayson concept car going is more impressive than its flat-out speed

HOW do you get more power out of an electric car than its main battery pack can deliver? Simple, turn the car's very bodywork into a battery, extract power from every bounce of its suspension system and, while you're at it, suck energy from the road surface too.

Such are the measures being built into an electric racing car capable of reaching 320 kilometres (200 miles) per hour by a UK-based consortium. Their aim is to perfect a multitude of novel electric-vehicle (EV) technologies and ultimately to transfer them to road cars. Led by Drayson Racing Technologies of Oxford and Lola Cars of Huntingdon, the 10-firm consortium also includes aerospace heavyweight BAE Systems in Warton, UK, and 3G-cellphone pioneer Qualcomm of San Diego, California. They want to improve on the range of today's EVs, says consortium leader Paul Drayson, which are normally limited to around 160 kilometres (100 miles).

"Don't judge electric cars by what you are seeing on the street right now," he says.

The first way they plan to improve range is to free the car's main battery from ancillary tasks like headlights. Enter BAE Systems' closely guarded "structural battery" technology - which allows sections of carbon-fibre bodywork to supply power. "They are made out of honeycombs of carbon fibre filled with a solution that gives them the energy storage capacity of a battery," says Julian Sole, chief designer at Lola Cars. "Their advantage is they can form any shape."

The structural battery is built into the rear of the car but there is no limit to how many of the car's surfaces could become batteries.

The next energy-scavenging trick comes from Multimatic of Rockingham, UK, which has harnessed the up-and-down motion of the car's suspension to generate electricity on the move. This charges a capacitor, whose discharge can be used to propel the car or power movable aerodynamic surfaces, which provide the super-slippery concept vehicle with road-holding downforce. The system mirrors the way regenerative braking in EVs and hybrids harvests deceleration energy rather than losing it as heat.

HaloIPT has developed doormat-sized pads packed with copper coils - one in the car, one in the road - that transfer power wirelessly to the car through electromagnetic induction. A HaloIPT spokesman claims that the system is 92 per cent efficient.

Drayson wants to populate the racing line on racetracks with the pads, so cars charge from the track during races. This kind of innovative charging technology, designed to keep the concept car flying around the track, will inevitably have wider applications. "The new generation of technology we are showcasing in electric racing will amaze people when it gets to road cars," he promises.

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